Would Pre still be tearing up track had he not died 40 years ago?

Pre was a pip.

Steve Prefontaine died 40 years ago Friday. Oregon papers are going crazy with retrospectives. I get it. He was a great athlete with great quotes and great iconoclast attitudes. He was funny. Wore a “Stop Pre” T-shirt. But would he have burned out? He was only 24 when he died, having taken fourth in the Munich 1972 Olympic 5,000. That’s young for a distance runner. He likely would have gone faster at the Montreal Games. “Pre brought the same urgent swagger to distance running that Muhammad Ali brought to boxing,” said one writer. “When Pre talked about running, he made it sound more macho than football, more illuminating than poetry.” He would have entered masters at age 40 in 1991. How might he have fared as a geezer? Wish he had made it to masters.